Editorial: Veterans still deserve better

Published: Friday, August 22, 2014 at 11:29 PM.

Congress has accomplished what has seemed impossible in our bitterly divided government: It reached a bipartisan compromise on a law that aims to improve a mismanaged and inadequate system of health care that serves the nation’s military veterans.

The agreement responds to a scandal in the Veterans Affairs health care system in which officials at many facilities had manipulated patient waiting lists to conceal long delays caused in part by shortages of doctors and nurses.

Most of the bill’s cost — $10 billion — will pay for a new program to let veterans seek care outside the VA system if they have to wait more than 30 days for an appointment or if they live more than 40 miles from a VA facility.

Another $5 billion will be set aside for hiring more doctors and nurses and for some construction. About $2 billion is allocated to lease 27 new medical facilities.

About $5 billion of the $17 billion total will be offset by changes at the VA, including a cap on staff bonuses. The remainder is identified as “emergency spending” that will be added to the federal deficit.

It’s a start. While the bill takes some important steps, it does not provide the comprehensive overhaul that the VA — by most measures, the nation’s largest health care system — desperately needs. For one thing, it apparently doesn’t include money to upgrade the department’s scheduling system, which is at the root of the scandal. These shortcomings should be addressed in future legislation.

It’s tempting to praise Congress and the Obama administration for putting aside their partisan differences in an effort to provide better health care for the military veterans who have fought and suffered injuries for the freedoms all Americans enjoy. But we’ll save the glowing plaudits for the day the VA health system convinces America that it is serving veterans well.

Congress has accomplished what has seemed impossible in our bitterly divided government: It reached a bipartisan compromise on a law that aims to improve a mismanaged and inadequate system of health care that serves the nation’s military veterans.

The agreement responds to a scandal in the Veterans Affairs health care system in which officials at many facilities had manipulated patient waiting lists to conceal long delays caused in part by shortages of doctors and nurses.

Most of the bill’s cost — $10 billion — will pay for a new program to let veterans seek care outside the VA system if they have to wait more than 30 days for an appointment or if they live more than 40 miles from a VA facility.

Another $5 billion will be set aside for hiring more doctors and nurses and for some construction. About $2 billion is allocated to lease 27 new medical facilities.

About $5 billion of the $17 billion total will be offset by changes at the VA, including a cap on staff bonuses. The remainder is identified as “emergency spending” that will be added to the federal deficit.

It’s a start. While the bill takes some important steps, it does not provide the comprehensive overhaul that the VA — by most measures, the nation’s largest health care system — desperately needs. For one thing, it apparently doesn’t include money to upgrade the department’s scheduling system, which is at the root of the scandal. These shortcomings should be addressed in future legislation.

It’s tempting to praise Congress and the Obama administration for putting aside their partisan differences in an effort to provide better health care for the military veterans who have fought and suffered injuries for the freedoms all Americans enjoy. But we’ll save the glowing plaudits for the day the VA health system convinces America that it is serving veterans well.

VA officials have admitted that bureaucrats within the agency covered up excessive wait times that jeopardized or harmed the health of hundreds of military veterans and resulted in some deaths — the number of which is still being debated. Calling the measure a mere Band-Aid, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Association CEO Paul Rieckhoff explains his feelings about the bill to the Arizona Republic in a story Aug. 1.

“While there are many good elements to the bill, ... we are nonetheless outraged that it took the VA scandal to create this kind of urgency in Washington for our veterans,” he said in a written statement to the newspaper. “Though we are both glad and relieved that an agreement is reached, we believe that Congress hardly deserves praise for finally doing something they should have done a long time ago.”

It’s easy to concur with that opinion.

During a congressional election year, every American ought to make it clear to the candidates that veterans health care is a top priority. The work has just begun.

A version of this editorial first appeared in the The Courier and Daily Comet, a Halifax Media Group newspaper in Thibodaux, La